Stress relief and mental health have risen in importance the past few years. While it is important to hustle hard at work or school, it is just as important to sit back and relax. Hence, our community has shared 5 tips and tricks they use to stress relief!
Are you prone to stress and anxiety? Don’t worry, this is common for most people, especially since the 21 century. In our weekly Instagram survey, many of you have responded that you were very stressed out. That’s why we decided to follow up with your personal stress-relieving methods and share the 5 best tips for stress relief tested and reviewed by our community!
Say goodbye to stress with food!
It’s been proved that food is a good medicine for stress and anxiety due to its brain-boosting properties, and I couldn’t agree more! And it’s coherent with the many replies we received from our community, which it is to eat, or mentions food! Be it your favourite meal or just binging on your favourite snacks, food can bring you instant comfort to your tired soul. Especially sweet treats may decrease the production of stress hormones, hence helping you to relax more as well! Studies mention that some food and beverages demonstrate anxiety relief properties. When you’re stressed out, try having salmon, chamomile, turmeric, dark chocolate, yoghurt and green tea for some stress relief!
Baking or cooking can also be a great way to stress relief, especially when you see the smiles of those who enjoy your food! And a personal tip of mine is to “bake a Korean sweet treat called Hotteok so I can release my stress by punching the air out of the dough between the proofing process”. And for those worried about gaining weight from stress eating/cooking, here’s some simple and healthy recipes you can try to make the next time you’re stressed out!
Sweat your stress away!
It is known that exercise produces endorphins that will help improve your overall mood. And endorphins being responsible for giving you a feeling of euphoria and happiness, it is sure to help boost your mood! Not only that, exercise can put your mind off whatever you’re stressing about to focus on the workout at hand, providing you with clarity and calmness. Hence it comes as no surprise that one of the tips we received the most was, exercise! Be it jogging like our member @mahani5722 suggests or yoga lie our member @kateblay_md does, find an exercise you like and let your sweat take away the stress you have piled up. Running out ideas for exercising?
Check out these Fitness YouTubers or Applications to help you exercise here .
Meditate to relieve your stress!
Meditation has been rising in popularity the past few years to help people relieve stress, and that is due to its ability to trigger your body’s response to relax. There are a ton of ways to meditate, but our member @imnotkeicb suggests you can start by just deep breathing 10 times. This will help kickstart your body’s response to relaxation, kicking off your stress relief process.
A breathing exercise for meditation is Box Breathing, which is a simple, easy and quick breathing exercise that the Navy uses. You simply breathe in for 4 counts, hold the breath for 4 counts, and breath out for 4 counts. This 4-4-4 ratio will not put you into a sleepy state or charge you up with energy, but it has a “neutral energetic effect” which helps you stay in a neutral state of relaxation. Here’s a visual for you to follow along!
Learn more about the Box Breathing technique here
Play some music for stress relief!
Music is something that is deeply rooted in emotions, and it makes complete sense that music is one of the top tips for stress relief! Cortisol, which is a hormone linked to stress, has been proven to be reduced when you play calming music. Hence, our members @digitalmasha and @luluproductreviews suggested we listen to some music with some essential oil diffusers to help you relax even more.
Relaxing playlists are all over YouTube and Spotify so grab a cup of tea or coffee and play your favourite tunes and sit back and watch your stress melt away. Classical music is a good choice for relaxation but if that isn’t your thing, ASMR sounds like the ocean or nature also holds relaxing effects similar to playing music!
If calm music it’s really not your thing you could “put on some music and dance” like our member @evevvyblue or break out into your own karaoke session!
Retail therapy as stress relief!
For all my girls out there, retail therapy is probably your favourite way to stress relief. I am guilty of this, and my bank statement can definitely prove that retail therapy is the best tips for stress relief for me. But hey, who can resist breaking out into a smile when you find your cart full of gorgeous pieces that you just spent 20 minutes browsing through?
It has been proven by studies that retail therapy is actually useful in helping one manage stress through the ability to control what they want to purchase. Shopping can even help keep your blood pressure in check, so start your shopping spree now!
And if you feel guilty for purchasing the items, don’t! Shoppers have been found to be three times less sad than those who only browse through the items. Treat yourself a little in times of stress, and shop away your stress guilt-free!
And that’s the 5 best tips for stress relief you have shared with us on stress relief! Always take your mental health seriously, and never let it pile up till a point where all of your stress becomes something much worse. Take some time to talk to your friends or even give yourself some “me time” to process your emotions and relieve your negative emotions.
Did our community’ tips help you with stress relief? Let us know in the reply box below! And if you have any other methods of stress relief, please let us know below too!
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Thanks for the great tips! Especially useful under the current circumstances! Sing and dance is the best stress relief for me! Do you have a good Youtube or Spotify relaxation playlist to recommend by any chance?
It’s great that you find them useful! Dancing is always a great way to relieve stress!
Personally, I love lofi hiphop so this is one of my go-to playlists to relax! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qap5aO4i9A